i sat there this year at our tenebrae service and i could not help but remember last year. last year i had sat with 3 people i had only known for 5 days. we had given food and shelter to others for that week, but these 3-something different was happening. these came to the service. and then spent 2 hours following the service asking me questions, and i opened up the scriptures and talked and listened. and went to bed amazed at what i just watched God do....with this vessel that is me. amazed that He allowed me to participate. and then spent this past year pouring out my heart, my life, my love. hoping they. would. know. Him.

last night i sat there and the seats next to me were empty. these 3-they chose not to return to this place. i had hoped.

Jesus. he spent 3 years with those 12. opening up the scriptures. explaining. pouring out his heart, his life, his love. hoping they. would. know. Him.

today is the day of sitting in this place of hope deferred. feeling it. grieving.

i know, i know there is the rest of the story. but i don?t want to go there yet. i want to stay in this place for a while. ponder. reflect.

sitting here in this place, its my Emmaus road. i?m walking it with my risen Lord, but i?m blind like those disciples. i don?t know that by tomorrow?s celebration of the rest of the story i will have moved on or not. i just know for today. (this day bewteen friday and sunday)

at the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.and at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice;

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.

Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them. They cried out to you and were saved. They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, ?Is this the one who relies on theLord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him!?

Yet you brought me safely from my mother?s womb and led me to trust you at my mother?s breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me. My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey. My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.

O Lord, do not stay far away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid! Save me from the sword; spare my precious life from these dogs. Snatch me from the lion?s jaws and from the horns of these wild oxen.

with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottem....Joseph of Arimathea bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock.(Mark 15; Psalm 22)

you long for the skin-scratching momma of yours to be free from dying the slow and painful death she is inflicting on herself.

i long for the medal-collecting daddy of mine to be free from living the slow and painful life he is inflicting on himself.

they are both addicts-just addicted to different things.

and we are daughters, you and me. who just wanted our parents to parent us. we have holes and they have holes and we?re all just broken.

but then i ponder about what is different. and i feel like a great big fool for even thinking i am the same. i the one who complains about washing peed-in sheets for the umpteenth time and 2 days without a toilet. You just long for a home to wash sheets in....and then when it comes, just something to sit on-any random apparatus will do-- and i think--how offensive for me to even think we are the same-i have so so much more. and i accept the challenge ?to stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.?

but the hole is the same, and the sin struggle is the same, and the brokenness is the same.

the need for Jesus is the same.

i am just a fool. and i have no clue how to love well.

it all gets tangled up and complicated spinning a web inside my head.

and if i sit in the web long enough-i make vows to myself not to come your way again, just to stay away because i?m just making it all worse. we are so different after all.

then my real Father comes to me. and He whispers; "it never was about you loving well, relating well.